A headteacher has spoken of her pride after her school was featured live on national television.
Sarah Hanson, who has led St Barnabas CE Primary School since 2015, described the appearance on ITV’s This Morning as “a really amazing morning.”
The Worcester primary school was invited onto the show to celebrate being named UK Kind School of the Year by the charity 52 Lives.
Mrs Hanson said: “There’s been lots of phone calls this week about how live TV works in a busy functioning school.
“Lee the cameraman was great, some of our tech team were allowed to help with the equipment and have a chat to him.
“The children had to rehearse what was going to happen, they had to be quiet, they were amazingly disciplined.”
Students were interviewed on ITV’s This Morning (Image: St Barnabas Primary School)
Pupils, staff and classroom life were broadcast to viewers across the UK in a segment filmed at the school, including interviews with newly appointed school councillors Ayo, Rosie and Simeon, all aged 10.
The This Morning crew visited three different classes during their visit.
They observed a Year 1 class with Mrs Boulter, a Year 6 lesson with Mr White, and a Year 3 class with Mrs Chamberlain, where the live segment was filmed.
ITV first got in touch with St Barnabas last week, but Mrs Hanson didn’t inform the parents until yesterday that it was definitely going ahead due to the potential for it to get ‘bumped’ if something big happened elsewhere.
The school won the award in June this year.
The school appeared live on TV just before midday (Image: St Barnabas Primary School)
Mrs Hanson said: “They (52 Lives) felt that kindness ran through everything we did, like a golden thread, the way that we get to know our families when they first join us, the way that we greet the children in the morning as they come into school.
“It’s not all about delivery of lessons, it’s much broader than that, it’s about making each child feel like they belong and that we are here for them.”
St Barnabas also works with Voice 21, a national oracy charity, and is a designated Centre of Excellence for helping children develop communication skills, empathy and respectful debate.
“If you ever come here one of the things you will hear children say from quite young is ‘I respectfully disagree with you’, it’s such a great skill to be able to do and so many adults could learn from that,” Mrs Hanson added.
It caps a very successful few months for the school after they won primary school of the year at the Worcestershire Education Awards and runner-up in the TES awards’ national primary school of the year.